Zen master Sixin Wuxin:

"While still alive, be therefore assiduous in practising Dhyāna.  The practice consists in abandonments.  ‘The abandonment of what?’ you may ask. Abandon your four elements (bhuta), abandon your five aggregates (skandha), abandon all the workings of your relative consciousness (karmavijnana), which you have been cherishing since eternity; retire within your inner being and see into the reason of it.  As your self-reflection grows deeper and deeper, the moment will surely come upon you when the spiritual flower will suddenly burst into bloom, illuminating the entire universe.  The experience is incommunicable, though you yourselves know perfectly well what it is." 

Robert Aitken Roshi — A Personal & Biographical Reflection by Alan Senauke

Robert Baker Aitken — Dairyu Chotan/Great Dragon (of the) Clear Pool — died on August 5, 2010 in Honolulu at the age of 93. He was the “dean” of Western Zen teachers, a great light of dharma. Aitken Roshi was a prophetic and inconvenient voice right to the end. I have a picture of him from a year or two back, smiling impishly, holding up a hand-lettered sign that reads: “The System Stinks.”

Over the last twenty years I was privileged to collaborate with Aitken Roshi at Buddhist Peace Fellowship, to study with him at the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, and to help with editorial tasks on one of his books. As thousands of readers found, his books are treasures — deep in dharma, crisp and vivid in voice, and ringing with the sound of justice.

Robert Aitken spent childhood years in Honolulu, not far from the Palolo Zendo he built later in life. When I practiced with him at Palolo in 1996, he took me for a walk through his old neighborhood, pointing out the parks and houses, strolling along the beach at Waikiki and through the grand old parlors of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. He loved the air and sea. The sounds of birds and geckos punctuated his lectures, calling him to attention.

During World War II, as a construction worker on Guam, young Robert Aitken was interned by invading Japanese troops and sent to a camp in Kobe, Japan for the rest of the war. A sympathetic guard gave him a copy of R.H. Blyth’s Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics which he read over and over. In 1944, by chance, Aitken and Blyth, who also been interned in Japan, were transferred to the same camp. They became close friends, and Aitken determined he would study Zen with a true master on his release.

He returned to Hawaii and earned a bachelor’s degree in literature and a master’s degree in Japanese language. A thesis on the great Zen poet Bassho became his first book, A Zen Wave. In the late 1940s he began Zen studies in Los Angeles with the pioneering teacher Nyogen Senzaki. He went to Japan in the early 50s to practice with Nakagawa Soen Roshi, one of the 20th century’s most original Rinzai monks, who invited him to lead a sitting group in 1959, placing Robert Aitken among the very first western Buddhist teachers.

From 1962 on, Aitken organized sesshins for Yasutani Roshi, whose Sanbo Kyodan (Three Treasures) school merged the shikantaza emphasis of Soto with rigorous koan work of the Rinzai school. Studying with Yasutani, and with his successor Yamada Koun Roshi, Robert Aitken was authorized to teach independently, and became known as Aitken Roshi. The Diamond Sangha arose from his travels and teachings. It now has more than twenty affiliates around the world, and a cadre of accomplished and transmitted dharma heirs.

Aitken Roshi, his wife Anne, and Nelson Foster founded the Buddhist Peace Fellowship on the back porch of the Maui Zendo in 1978. The idea was to further the interdependent practice of awakening and social justice. The spark for BPF was struck from Roshi’s in depth study of 19th and 20th century anarchism, and his long experience as an anti-war and anti-military activist. BPF continues to this day with the same mission. In a later book, Encouraging Words, Aitken Roshi wrote that “monastery walls have broken down and the old teaching and practice of wisdom, love and responsibility are freed for the widest applications in the domain of social affairs.”

I was drawn to Aitken Roshi’s books in the 1980s, first reading his classic Taking the Path of Zen (1982), a primer on Zen practice. I have a copy of The Mind of Clover (1984) signed at a reading at Black Oak Books in early 1985. In my reckoning this is still the best book around on practical Buddhist ethics. But among his thirteen published books (with more to come, I hope), I would also point out The Gateless Barrier — Roshi’s translation of the Mumonkan koan collection — and The Practice of Perfection, his commentary on the paramitas or Mahayana “perfections.”

Aitken Roshi was a disciplined writer. That was an essential part of his daily practice, writing for several hours each morning, trying to avoid interruptions and distractions. Several times I found him reading aloud to himself, polishing the language and voice until it sounded right to his ears. You can hear that distinct voice in every page he wrote.

There is an image near the end of the Avatamsaka Sutra, the pinnacle of early Chinese Hua-Yen Buddhism, that Aitken Roshi often cited. Similar to the interdependent reality of Indra’s Net, he delighted in the idea of Maitreya’s tower, extending into and throughout space, encompassing an infinite number of towers, one as brilliant and astonishing as the next. And somehow these towers co-exist in space without conflict or contradiction. I think this dazzling vision is how Roshi saw the world. It is also how we can see his mind and work.

Aitken Roshi never found an inch of separation between his vision of justice and the Zen teachings of complete interdependence. The vast universe, with all its joys and sorrows was his true dwelling place. It still is. Robert Aitken Roshi, presente!

 SONG OF THE GRASS ROOF HERMITAGE 

 by Shih-t'ou, 700-790.

I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value. After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap. When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared. Now it's been lived in - covered by weeds. The person in the hut lives here calmly, Not stuck to inside, outside, or in between. Places worldly people live, he doesn't live. Realms worldly people love, he doesn't love. Though the hut is small, it includes the whole world. In ten feet square, an old man illumines forms and their nature. A Mahayana bodhisattva trusts without doubt. The middling or lowly can't help wondering, Will this hut perish or not? Perishable or not, the original master is present, Not dwelling south or north, east or west. Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed. A shining window below the green pines - Jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it. Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. Thus this mountain monk doesn't understand at all. Living here he no longer works to get free. Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests? Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from. Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction, Bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up. Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Open your hands and walk innocent. Thousands of words, myriad interpretations, Are only to free you from obstructions. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, Don't separate from this skin bag here and now.  - Translated by Daniel Leighton with Yi Wu

Hui-neng

There was a monk named Chih-ch'ang from the town of Kueihsi in Hsinchou prefecture. He left home when he was seven determined to see his nature. As he came to pay his respects one day, the Master [Hui-neng] asked him, "Where are you from? And what are you here for?"

Chih-ch'ang said, "This student recently went to Paifengshan in Hungchou to pay my respects to Master Ta-t'ung and to receive instruction in how to see my nature and become a buddha. But I still had questions. So I have come all this way to throw myself at the Master's feet in hopes of his compassion and instruction."

The Master said, "What exactly did he tell you? See if you can remember."

Chih-ch'ang said, "After I had been there for three months, I still hadn't received any instruction. Because I was hungry for the Dharma, I went by myself to the abbot's room, and I asked him what my original mind and my original nature were like. He said, 'Do you see the space around us or not?' I answered, 'Yes, I see it.' And he said, 'When you see this space, does it have any distinguishing features?' I answered, 'Space doesn't have any form, much less any distinguishing features.' And he said, 'Your original nature is just like space. When there is nothing at all you can see, this is true seeing. And when there is nothing at all you can know, this is true knowing. It isn't blue or yellow, long or short. Just see that your original source is completely pure and the body of your awareness is perfectly clear. This is to see your nature and become a buddha. This is also what a tathagata sees.' Although I heard this explanation, I still didn't fully understand and have come to beg the Master to instruct me."

The Master said, "What he told you still includes views, which is why you don't understand. Let me give you this gatha:

Not seeing a thing but thinking of not seeing

is like when a cloud blocks the sun's face

not knowing a thing but thinking of not knowing

is just like when lightning appears in the sky

as long a such concepts keep suddenly arising

you won't find the means to escape your confusion

but if in one thought you know you're mistaken

your own wondrous light is there shinning through."

When Chih-ch'ang heard this gatha, his mind became suddenly clear, and he offered one of his own:

"I thoughtlessly gave rise to concepts

seeking Buddhahood still attached to form

harboring the thought of enlightenment

hoping to overcome old delusions

the body of my nature and source of awareness

just went along drifting in vain

if I hadn't entered the patriarch's chamber

I'd still be lost at the fork in the road."

From The Platform Sutra - Translated by Red Pine.

Sabbath Poem XIII

By Wendell Berry

Will-lessly the leaves fall,
are blown, coming at last
to the ground and to their rest.
Among them in their coming down
purposely the birds pass,
of all the unnumbered ways
choosing one, until
they like the leaves will
will-lessly fall. Thus freed
by gravity, every one
enters the soil, conformed
to the craft and wisdom, the behest
of God’s appointed vicar,
our mother and judge, who binds
us each to each, the largest
to the least, in the family of all
the creatures: great Nature
by whom all are changed, none
are wasted, none are lost.
Supreme artist of this
our present world, her works
live and move, love
their places and their lives in them.
And this is praise to the highest
knowledge by the most low.

—From the volume, "This Day: New & Collected Sabbath Poems 1979-2012” (2013)